Next to the 13-metre tall dinosaur skeleton, Anisia Petcu, the Romanian manager of Berlin Science Week, appears as a red dot in constant motion. She makes milestones among participants, booths, volunteers, guests, team members, pausing every now and then briefly to say something still brief.
The dinosaur skeleton stands at the entrance to the science festival's "headquarters" at the Museum of Natural Sciences in Berlin.Anisia says she would never have made it there, in charge of a festival with 35,000 participants and 200 events, if she hadn't first stopped in front of exhibits in another museum: Romania's National Art Museum.
"We need people who know how to translate information for a general audience that has no specialist knowledge."
"There were super impressive baroque portraits on display, with ladies who had all their jewellery on," Anisia recalls of her visit to the museum. At a workshop she had attended as a student, it had been explained to her that portraits were basically the marketing and PR of the time. That it was in the way they presented themselves as people. "There are very clear parallels between them and Instagram or selfies." Since then, Anisia recounts, she's understood how valuable it is to narrate art in a way that makes people find a personal connection to something they felt wasn't for them.
Under the guidance of Mona Timofte, her mentor, Anisia Petcu started to organize art tours for teenagers. "It was the first time, I think, that I saw how cool it can be to change the tone a bit: art museums and art history are pretty stiff, but you can convey it in other ways. And then they also understand people who would otherwise be excluded." This experience has helped her understand how important it is that information in museums and universities, which is more difficult to understand, becomes accessible to everyone. "You need people who know how to translate information for a wide audience, who don't necessarily have specialist knowledge."
Organizing the festival takes one year
The mission of translating complex information still guides her now that she joined the Falling Walls Foundation in 2022, which organises Berlin Science Week. This is an annual event that takes place during the first 10 days of November. "The basic idea of the festival is to bring science to as many people as possible," explains Anisia. The festival combines face-to-face activities taking place all over Berlin with online and hybrid events, focusing on the exchange of ideas and reflection. The programme includes interactive and often interdisciplinary formats, from talks, workshops, exhibitions to VR experiences, film screenings, music installations and more.
Organising such a festival is a cyclical process that stretches throughout the year. "We start in January, with the conclusions we drew from the last edition, and we start thinking, strategizing about what worked, what we keep, what we do differently," says Anisia. Then, by March, she starts looking for partners and talking to organisations she would like to have at the festival. In parallel, the team is working on the communication strategy. September and October are the busiest months, when the communication campaign is underway and preparations are being finalised. "There are busy days in November, then we all breathe and then at the end of the year it's retrospective, we get feedback, we see what went well, what didn't go well."
The festival is mainly funded by the state, with the money covering team salaries and communication. The rest of the funding comes from partnerships and participation fees.
2023 was the first full festival Anisia worked on. It was also the first to have a section dedicated to the transmission of science through art. Passionate researchers built art installations that spoke in a different language about their studies: from frames constructed from processors burned in quantum physics research to stories clothed in sounds and images about the local journey of water.
It is important for researchers to understand that they are not studying in a vacuum
Integrating art into a festival is not only about a marketing strategy to reach a different kind of audience, but also about inclusivity and accessibility. Anisia says it was only after graduating that she realised that not everyone sees things the same way, because it depends on the opportunities people have had throughout their lives. "So if I've had some chances, it's my responsibility to try, in my small way, to make sure that others have access or see things." She understood this especially while working as a social worker with Roma women in Berlin, in neighbourhoods where there is a high concentration of this community. "Most of the adults don't have a very high level of education, because they had difficulties and couldn't finish school."
Anisia believes that the need for accessibility also applies to science, "because a lot of societal decisions are based on knowledge that is acquired in universities and laboratories". So it's important that people have access to that science, which will eventually reach society and will end up influencing lives directly." As for the people in the lab, Anisia Petcu believes that "it is important to understand that they are not studying in a vacuum. And that there are real people to talk to and consider."
English (UK) 
Română